Udaipur beyond the palaces

Everybody goes to Udaipur for the palaces and the lake, sees them in a morning, and then has four days left. Those four days are the reason to stay outside the city, and they are the part people remember.

Go up, not in

The city sits in a bowl. Anywhere on the rim gives you the whole thing at once, and the difference between seeing Udaipur from a boat and seeing it from a ridge at dusk is the difference between a photograph and a memory. The roads out towards the Aravallis climb quickly.

The water is everywhere, not just in one lake

There are step-wells, tanks and small reservoirs all through the country around the city, most of them with nobody at them. Purohito Ka Talab is one of the ones near our Amberi house. A tank with a temple on one side and nobody else there is a better hour than a queue at a famous one.

Temples that are still in use

Eklingji is the obvious one, and it is a working temple rather than a monument, which changes the experience entirely — go at a quiet hour and stand at the back. Amrakh Ji Mahadev is another. Dress as the people around you are dressed and you will be made welcome.

Walk in a village

Not as an excursion with a guide. Just walk, in the late afternoon, on a lane near wherever you are staying. Rajasthan at five in the evening — goats coming home, somebody's radio, children on a wall — is the thing no itinerary contains.

Markets, early

The old-city markets are a crush by mid-morning and quite pleasant before it. If your villa has a cook, a market visit turns into dinner, which is the best possible use of it.

And then stop

The most common regret we hear is a week too tightly planned. Most of what Udaipur does well — the light on the hills, a pool in the afternoon, dinner that runs late — happens when there is nothing in the diary.

See where the houses are on villas in Udaipur.